Andrew Marr's History of the World

The series opens and closes with the Ayoreo tribe from Paraguay. It conveys an outmoded view of tribal peoples straight out of a colonialist's handbook. We are told they live like our ancestors and that history has passed them by. Neither are true and it's dangerous rubbish because it's exactly the same view which has led to the destruction of tribes throughout the world. We are also told that Africa was 'always dangerous' for early man (but the script thankfully fell short of calling it the 'dark continent'). The 're-enactments' of people passing out of Africa and growing crops for the first time are pure Monty Python. Best viewed as comedy. How this was a co-production with the Open University beats me.

It's craggy, it's rugged and it looks like it was formed from hot volcanic ash around 70,000 years ago. Yes, it's Andrew Marr's face – desperately in need of dental work but as trustworthy and kindly as your favourite teacher at school.

The History of the World was always going to be a ridiculously ambitious project. But Andrew Marr is tackling it with great flair – as fearlessly as Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar or any of the charismatic historical figures he's introduced us to so far.

Of course, the dramatic reconstructions are a little clunky at times, and some of history's greatest figures do look like they've been cast after a quick flick through the actor's directory Spotlight. But I for one don't care. Because I am loving Andrew Marr's History of the World.

Last night I sat down and watched the first four episodes back to back, and when you cram a potted version of world history into such a short time frame quite a lot of things start to make sense. We kicked off with a look at how the earliest humans spread around the world, mainly, it seems, by balancing their way across precarious narrow stone bridges. Then we explored the great empires of Rome and China – two ancient civilisations who, in the absence of long haul air travel, co-existed for thousands of years without ever knowing of each other's existence. How peaceful the world would be today if the United States and the Muslim World were as blissfully unaware of each other.

My favourite episode so far looked at how the Vikings became the Russians. Apparently they couldn't decide which of the world's religions would suit them best, so they invited the heads of all the world's religions to come to Russia and pitch to them, saying they would choose the one they liked best. They immediately turned down Islam because they didn't want to give up drinking, and finally plumped for the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church, because they liked the style of the paintings and the big pointy gold domes.

Television like this make me wish I'd paid more attention in history classes at school, and underlines the fact that a subject is generally only as interesting as the person who teaches it to you. Presenters like Professor Brian Cox, Simon Schama and Andrew Marr are bringing science and history to life for a generation who previously thought these subjects were dull and boring.

You can catch up with the whole series of Andrew Marr's History of the World on iPlayer, and I highly recommend that you do.

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This series is full of wrong conclusions in history and over the top presentation.

It should be classified as alternative communist view history.

The history of the world 🌍 is a history of ideas of people which haven't been presented here.

When I was a student, I was obsessed with documentaries. This is one of the documentaries I watched back then. Enjoyable to watch.

Lots of historical inaccuracies . The scientific knowledge possessed by Arabs , they acquired it from India ,which was never mentioned . And the atrocities done by Muslim armies to Constantinople was totally neglected .It was if the the director was deliberately trying to simply paint only the good side that came with Islam with mentioning muslim conquests with only the word 'exploding' .Arabs ,even before Mohammad had acquired certain knowledge regarding Mathematics and geometry from their constant trade and relations with India . This being referred to as "Islamic Knowledge" is totally wrong . Even the numbers known as 'Arabic numerals' are not Arabic , they are Indian . Since Europeans got to know of these knowledge with their interaction with Arabs , seems to have thought this belonged to Arabs when it didn't .

Today , when most of us already know the history , i don't understand why BBC is so desperately trying to distort the same and what does it mean by "Islamic Knowledge ". The knowledge arabs/persians got had nothing to do with Islam.

PS: This documentary can be called as world history from a European (leftist) perspective . I am surprised to see that this documentary seems to mention nothing of much importance to Jesus, while it gave Mohammad a lot of mentions.